The 2nd episode of hugely controversial brutal rotoscope anime Aku no Hana has given rise to a disturbing realisation amongst viewers – that it may actually be good in spite of the heretical character designs…

Aku no omake:

The anime is apparently so loathed people (or 2ch at any rate) are starting to like it:

“I got used to it. Those girls are cute, it’s just the caps which are creepy.”

“Is the reason I found this good because of the sheer power of the original?”

“Once you get used to it, it is really good. Even the people in the screenshot threads rate it.”

“This one was too good, really exciting!”

“So it dodged the bullet by becoming a joke anime so bad it is good…”

“After watching the first episode a number of times I am inured to it and can now watch normally.”

“Humans can get used to anything, even this. I don’t even notice the design now. In fact I am really looking forward to it.”

“Everyone bashed the hell out of the first episode, but once you are used to the production style it is seriously good. That poor protagonist!”

“Creepy art, but when you use creepy art to depict creepy things, it is rather effective.”

“My eyes… they became used to this.”

“The director was saying in an interview that it was all intended to create a special atmosphere.”

“I can’t believe it, this is good. You guys bashed it so much I actually started watching it, and now it is obviously the best anime of the season!”

Are you an idiot? Rotoscoping serves as a "middle-ground" between animation and live-action. Obviously, there were too many opinions about how this show should have ended up. There's nothing wrong with RS per se, it just so happens that the way they apply it is atrocious.

That's the difference.

K-ON not being a live-action has nothing to do with anything. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand, ffs.

This show here has HORRIBLE rotoscoping. That is NOT a matter of taste. It is objectively bad.

Actually, the "live" part before the rotoscoping treatment is not really live-action acting. It's very overbearing and dramatized because it is meant to be treated further.

The point is that the rotoscoping here is really, really ugly. It doesn't matter if it's on purpose or if this is the actual, sad incapability of the production studio. I can guarantee you that if it wouldn't look that bad, most people wouldn't even have a problem with it.

Of course, there are also those who would argue that people are just being shallow and that art is untouchable but seriously, ugly rotoscoping is ugly. It's not its own form of art. It's just bad and should be called by its name.

"Save budgets"??? Hardly. Do you even have any idea how ridiculously costly rotoscoping is? What we have here is a clear case of director and author sparing no expense to spit fans in the face. Live action would have been MUCH cheaper.

And they only cast that girl because they thought they could get away with it once traced. There's no shortage of unknown and therefore relatively inexpensive pretty actresses they could (and would!) have chosen from if they went live-action as initially planned.

@ 04:04
I was merely paraphrasing the director. Yes, he really did say something to that extend. He wanted to do live-action, but the producers insisted on an anime because the fans would prefer that. So he decided to take revenge on all the evil 2D otaku. The mangaka was excited at that idea. Fits his twisted personality.

I can't be bothered to look for the interview in question right now. Search for yourself and you'll discover it's true.

''I totally Agree with Riiku''
You can not get use to it...it's like a slap in the face cause when i first heard this manga was having an anime i really wanted to watch, i wanted lavish it...ever second of it but now after it came out im like
....
...
..
damn....just..
fuck man
how the messed up on this -_-

yeah, yeah, all that "but japs look like this"
where are the wrinkles and the shades of the face, if this "anime" is so realistic huh?
admit it man, it's a sloppy job and they've should stuck to a live action if they already made the effort of finding actors to portray it

Its nothing new I am guessing the Director wanted to make a different type of Animation that would be challenging and would creep out the Japanese emotional crowd in a way would make them question there own psyche

Treat it like any of the other times an anime changed up from the original and treat it as a different story if you must. It's unfortunate, but at the same time, you already know the original story. You can potentially try and experience this as another experience of a story and let it be what it is.

The more human approach of having the characters be...human, slightly off, does have a sincere effect. Making people imperfect and letting their personality be their true beauty is far more mature a story than most anime watchers are ready to experience, so I guess we'll just see.

There is a truth that it was an original art style, and that discrepancy is disheartening, but treated differently, this can be interesting in its own way.

I read the original and, honestly, found it quite uninteresting until the latter half of it. I forced myself through 20+ chapters and, even then, I don't think it deserves the hype it gets. One of the appeals to me is the animation for this, it fits the style of the story alot more and makes it more creepy.

I suspect they're saying that one episode is enough to judge the merits of the entire anime when it's NOT gloriously animated, but you'd probably sit through two to four seasons of boring shit just as long as it fondles your eyeballs.